Jhajjar, June 13
Rajesh alias Dheela, 30, of Tandaheri village was allegedly shot dead in broad daylight by two assailants at Chhara village under Bahadurgarh sub-division here today. The assailants fled the spot. Old enmity is believed to be the reason behind the murder. The deceased had been living in Sirsa for last several months.

The Bahadurgarh Sadar police has booked three persons for the murder. The accused include son of woman sarpanch of Tandaheri village, on the basis of the complaint of the deceased’s friend Rakesh. Besides, the Sarpanch along with three others has also been booked on the charges of hatching a conspiracy for the crime. No arrest has been mad so far.

The incident took place around 8 am when Rajesh along with two of his friends Rakesh and Jai Bhagwan was going to Bhondsi town in Gurgaon from Taandaheri village in a Swift car. As they reached Chhara village, their car was intercepted by a Bulero jeep after overtaking it, said Devender Dangi, Public Relation Officer (PRO) of the Jhajjar Police.

“Sumit, son of village sarpanch Saroj, and Mahabir, armed with pistols came in a Bulero jeep and attacked Rajesh. He fled towards Chhara village after getting down from his car. Sumit and Mahabir fired two rounds at Rajesh from close range after chasing him for some distance. Rajesh died on the spot while the accused fled in the same jeep,” said Dangi.

The Bahadurgarh Sadar SHO along with other police officials rushed to the spot and sent the body, which was lying in a pool of blood, to the Civil Hospital for a post-mortem examination. Later, a team of forensic experts also visited the spot and collected some samples.

Sumit, Mahabir and the driver of Bulero jeep have been booked under Section 302 of the IPC while a case under Section 120 B of the IPC has been registered against the village sarpanch Saroj, Vijender, Narender and Sat Naryana of Taandaheri village in this regard,” said the PRO. He said three police teams had been constituted to arrest the accused.

Faridabad, June 13
Already reeling under the economic slowdown in the country, the current shortage of power has come as a jolt to the industry in Faridabad.

Industry associations here say the industrial production in Faridabad has fallen by 20-25 per cent during the past two months. The Faridabad Industry Association (FIA) and the Faridabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) attribute this largely to the inadequate and erratic supply of power.

Confirming the shortage of power, Faridabad Superintending Engineer, Operation, DHBVN, S Chopra, said generation of power in Haryana had been affected badly because two unit of the power plant at Yamunanagar (each having capacity of 300 MW) and one unit of the plant at Khader (600 MW capacity) had been closed due to technical reason.

Chopra said the current shortfall in the supply of power to the industry here was to the tune of about 15 per cent. However, GC Narang of the FIA said it ranged from 20 to 30 per cent of the normal supply.

Medium and small scale units were bearing the brunt on account of power shortage.

Navdeep Chawla, owner of a unit manufacturing medicines, says that although the “scheduled cuts” for industrial sector were only for six hours, the units were actually getting power supply just for about five hours.

Owners of industrial units allege that the supply of power which was inadequate, was marked by frequent and long spells of interruptions due to unscheduled cuts, which impeded working.

Chawla said unit owners were compelled to use generator sets to operate their machines. This increased the cost of production. According to him, the cost of one unit of power produced through a generator set was almost double the normal tariff.

A delegation of FIA had met the DHBVN authorities a couple of days ago and raised the issue of short supply of power.

Sirsa, June 13
Facing severe power crisis, residents of several villages in Sirsa are taking to the streets and have refused to pay their power bills.

Hundreds of villagers from Sultanpuria, Nanuana and Mangalia this morning locked the building of the 220-KV power substation at Rania and sat on a dharna. Irked villagers continued their dharna till evening till an executive magistrate and senior officials of the DHBVN reached there and assured them better power supply in future.

Earlier, residents of three villages, Nanuana, Ottu and Dhukra, had refused to pay their power bills until they start getting uninterrupted power supply.

“No power, no bills,” the villagers declared at Dhukra, when officials of the DHBVN approached them for payments yesterday. The villagers had retuned teams of the DHBVN empty handed that had gone there to collect payments of their power bills.

“Power situation in our villages is so poor that we hardly get electricity for two to three hours in a day,” alleged some villagers at Rania.

Meanwhile, villagers from Narelkhera, Bagguwali, Dhani Majra, Dhani Khuhwali, Ding Road and Karnoli today served a two-day ultimatum to the DHBVN authorities to resume regular power supply to them or face agitation.

Villagers today went to the DHBVN powerhouse, Ding Road, and served a memorandum to the Sub Divisional Officer giving him time till June 15 to improve the situation.

The villagers warned that they would start their dharna outside the powerhouse from June 16, if the conditions did not improve.

“There is virtually no power supply to our villages and as a result even the supply of drinking water has been hampered,” alleged the agitating villagers.

Bashir Ahmed, Executive Engineer, said the conditions were not in their control as the power crisis was a statewide phenomenon. He said he hoped that the villagers would start paying their bills from tomorrow.

Jhajjar: Enraged over frequent and long unscheduled power cuts, a large numbers of residents of Dhandlan village under the Beri subdivision locked the main gate of the power sub-station located outside the village here on Wednesday and shouted anti-government slogans.

Officials of the power department and the police failed to get the door of the sub-station opened as the protesters demanded that Deputy Commissioner, Jhajjar, to listen to their grievances.

Later, Naseeb Singh Chauhan, Executive Engineer of the power department, reached the spot and persuaded the protesters after over two hours to unlock the gate. He assured the villagers power supply would be restored soon as per the schedule. The protesters said power was being supplied in the village only for two-three hours in a day.

Bhanwar Singh and Jagdish said they were finding it difficult to run tubewells owing to frequent power cuts. “Even when power supply is resumed, we do not get enough load to run the water pumps,” they said.

Faridabad, June 13
The driver of the dumper accused of murdering a constable on Monday by running the vehicle loaded with sand over him was today sent to 14-day judicial custody by a local court, even as his absconding employer and co-accused has eluded arrest.

Braham Singh, SHO of Sarai Khawaja police station, said the interrogation of the driver, Pappu, was completed during the period of his two-day remand, which ended this evening. The police made a case for his judicial custody before the court, which was upheld, he added.

Singh said the driver had confessed that his employer, Rajpal Chauhan, alleged to be a member of sand mafia, had directed him to break through the ‘nakka’ and run the vehicle over the constable to escape the police. Chauhan was piloting the dumper on his car. The driver, a native of Aligarh in UP, was employed by Chauhan, a month ago. He has revealed that his employer was a native 
of Alwar in Rajasthan, Singh added.

On the other hand the apparent embarrassment to the police force on account of the brutal murder of its personnel continues as Chauhan has managed to evade arrest. The police teams have visited various places in Delhi, UP and Rajasthan to arrest Chauhan but could not trace him.

In a related development, Faridabad Deputy Commissioner Balraj Singh and the Police Commissioner Shatrujit Singh Kapur held a joint meeting with senior officers of the district this evening to put in place an effective mechanism to stop illegal mining.

Balraj Singh said it had been decided to step up vigil by the police. The panchayats in villages, which fall along the banks of the Yamuna would also be enlisted in the vigil operation. They would be made accountable in case illegal mining occurs in their villages.

Chandigarh, June 13
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is getting bouquets and brickbats for leading a delegation of prominent Jat leaders of various states like Punjab, Rajasthan and Haryana to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram yesterday to urge him to expedite a favourable decision on the demand of the Jats for reservation under the OBC category.

Hawa Singh Sangwan, president of the Haryana unit of the Akhil Bharatiya Jat Arakshan Samiti, which has been spearheading the Jat agitation to press the demand for inclusion in the OBC category for the purpose of reservation in jobs, today appreciated Hooda for leading the delegation to Chidambaram.

Sangwan said this showed the vision and commitment of Hooda towards the poor farming community of the country. It is for the first time after the Chhotu Ram era that the leaders of Jat community from the ruling party had come forward under one leader to espouse the cause of a poor farming community, which was kept out of the OBC ambit by the Mandal Commission due to obvious reasons. However, Hooda has drawn criticism from the non-Jat communities for his action.

Chandigarh, June 13
State residents, especially youngsters in the 13-35 age group, can become a part of Haryana’s ambitious Youth Policy-2012 aimed at overall development of youth, by logging on to www.youthyear.in.

In fact, the exposure draft of the youth policy, which was released by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda at a conference on “youth in mass media” organised by Haryana Sports and Youth Affairs Department here today, seeks to be a panacea for all ills afflicting the youth in the state.

While Hooda and his Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Sukhbir Kataria sounded rhetorical in their speeches with the latter patting the Chief Minister on the back for Haryana sportspersons’ “extraordinary” achievements at the national and international levels, bureaucrats set forth policy’s objectives.

Hooda claimed that the policy was aimed at ensuring that the concerns of the youth were taken into account in all areas of government policy and decision-making. Through the youth policy, the state is looking at greater involvement of the youth in solving social and community issues around health and nutrition, education and employment opportunities, child and maternal care, female infanticide, social justice, and substance abuse with a special emphasis on empowering women and girl child, he added.

Hardeep Kumar, Financial Commissioner-cum-Prinicipal Secretary, Sports and Youth Affairs, stressed upon the need to channelise youth’s energy in positive direction.

Rewari, June 13
Head constable Maman Singh, head constable Din Dayal and constable Rajesh Kumar have been suspended and sent to the Police Lines by SP Abhishek Garg for allegedly extorting monthly from cricket punters here.

DSP Virender Singh has been deputed to conduct a departmental enquiry against them. Meanwhile, city SHO Dhanpat Singh, CIA Inspector Narender Kumar and in charge of the security branch Ram Dhari have also been served show-cause notices in this regard.

The police had arrested nine bookies during a raid on a house in Sector 4 here on June 7 who were engaged in betting on a cricket match that was being played between Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The punters had confessed that they had been betting for the past several years and the three cops were on their payroll.

Fatehabad, June 13
A team of the Labour Department today rescued four child labourers, who were working at various shops in Fatehabad and handed them over to their parents. The team, which was accompanied by an executive magistrate Naurang Dass, issued challans to the shopkeepers.

The team rescued two children from a sweetshop in Hans Market, one from a tea stall on the Bhattu road and another from a hardware store on the Ratia road.

The authorities said notices would be served on these shopkeepers.

Rohtak, June 13
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the police, constituted to look into the allegations of physical and sexual abuse of the inmates of NGO shelter home Apna Ghar, visited the premises here today.

The team members, led by SP Sanjay Kumar, locked themselves inside the Apna Ghar premises and collected documents and other material from the shelter home. The shelter home was sealed a few days ago.

The SIT, accompanied by forensic and cyber-cell experts, examined the records at the shelter home for five hours. The cyber-cell experts also scanned the computers in search of evidence against the shelter-home manager Jaswanti Devi and her accomplices.

A raid by a team of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) in Apna Ghar shelter home had revealed physical, mental as well as sexual exploitation of the destitute women and girls here. The SIT would submit its report to the state government by June 20.

Yamunanagar: A special inquiry team has been constituted to probe allegations of sexual and physical exploitation of children at a shelter home, Balkunj, in Chhachhraulij. The Superintendent of Police, Yamunanagar, Mitesh Jain, said DSP Virender Kumar would lead the inquiry team.

Refuting the allegation that the police had pressurised a girl inmate at the home to file a rape complaint. He said the child had recorded her statement before the City Magistrate Pooja Chanwaria and on the basis of her statement the case was registered.

He said he cannot reveal the report of the medical report of the victim till the probe is complete. He said the police had booked a labourer and four unknown persons in the case. City Magistrate Pooja Chanwaria would submit her report to the Deputy Commissioner in this regard by June 20.

A child had gone missing from the shelter home for last few days and a few other inmates had leveled allegations of exploitation against officials of Balkunj. Leaders of the opposition parties have been demanding a CBI probe into the case.

Karnal, June 13
To instil a sense of security among tourists making a stop here on their way to Himachal and Jammu and Kashmir, a special ‘tourist police’ is being set up. This was stated by the district police chief, Shashank Anand.

The tourist police, donning a distinct dress, would assist these tourists and establish liaison with them, he said. It is also likely to reduce incidents of thefts at hotels and restaurants.

The tourist police would distribute pamphlets about ‘Do’s and don’ts’ and also brief tourists about their safety and comfortable stay. A 24-hour tourist helpline (97299-90479) would also be set up for the visitors in case of an emergency.